A Tale of Teal

Our latest contributor Joseph, takes us through an alternative set of conversions and paint schemes for Steelheart’s champions

ladies and gentlemen, my name is Joseph Dollery and I am a new contributor to the Shadeglass blog. I have recently finished my Steelheart’s Champions from my Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire Starter set and I wanted to share some of the ideas and schemes used for them, both in making them, converting them and painting them.

Making and converting

First impressions of these figures were really strong, I saw them in my local hobby shop and they looked brilliant, very well detailed but with enough room and flexibility in the miniatures for converting and customisation.

The first figure I tackled was Obryn the Bold, loved his hammer but I wanted to make it different but still keep to the idea of him bringing this weapon down on his foes, I’d seen axes done by GW’s Duncan Rhodes but I wanted to try something different, so a Starsoul mace head it was with a head swap as well to make him a bit different to the other miniatures.

Steelheart was next on the agenda and he was probably by far the most work to convert and change, my fault for wanting to make such sweeping changes to him however but I had a good idea of what I wanted the end result to be.

First thing to tackle was his new leg; I got the leg as part of a hoard of bits I got from a friend and as it was a full decorative leg guard I wanted to use it to really make my Steelheart stand out from the rest, some filling and green stuffing was needed to close any gaps.

Next was the left arm swap, taking the arm from the elbow and replacing with the arm holding these beads was an easy step but I felt looked good, perhaps he is channeling the powers of Sigmar through this holy pendant.

By far the biggest task was the shoulder guard on the left side, due to the previous shoulder guard attached to the plumed helmet which didn’t make the final cut, the entire under shoulder guard was shaved away with a very sharp blade and was replaced with a new shoulder guard, messy work with well worth it by the end.

Finally, it was the head swap, Steelheart is a Liberator Prime so a plumed helmet was my first instinct. One change I did decide to make was to leave off the large hammer pendant that Steelheart wears, I always found this symbol to be rather large and I wasn’t a fan of it on the figure, with me also giving him beads in his hand I decided it was best to cut away the large hammer pendant.

Next was the lady herself Angharad Brightshield, with her I wanted to do a few simple weapons swaps, however Duncan beat me to it and did the same conversion on her that I wanted to do, however after seeing it done it really showed me how good she looked with a sword and a round shield, so I knew I had to make it happen! Swapping the hammer hand with a clean cut and giving her the sword hand from the Liberators box was straightforward and the shield slipped in like it was designed for her.

Painting

Undercoat

White spray

Base coats

Armour – Macragge Blue

Metal – Leadbelcher

Gold – Retributor Armour

Red leather/belts – Mephiston Red

Gaps between armour – Abaddon Black

Plume/weapon grips – Naggaroth Night

Shoulder guards – Celestra Grey

Base – Zandri Dust for flagstones, Mournfang Brown for the dirt and Death Guard green for vines.

Leaves on base – Mephiston Red, Averland Sunset and Jokaero Orange

Washes

Armour – Nuln Oil

Metal – Nuln Oil

Red leather/belts/cloaks – Agrax Earthshade

Gold Trim – Agrax Earthshade

Plumes/weapon handles – Druchii Violet

Shoulder pads – Nuln Oil (Just run Nuln Oil into the very edges of the shoulder pad, just to add depth)

Base – Agrax Earthshade

Leaves on base – Agrax Earthshade

Basecoat reapplying to bring back colour if necessary, needed more over larger flatter areas such as the armour, metal (Use Ironbreaker instead), gold and the cloak of Steelheart.

These figures are very nice, I’m not a big Age of Sigmar player but I think these figures for push-fit figures designed for maybe a market of new Wargamers or people who haven’t played a miniatures game before I think they are ace.

As for conversions, I was also pleased how they came out, they took a bit more hacking and filling than I first anticipated, Brightshield I think is my favourite conversion, as simple as the conversions were I think she has such a different feel with the smaller shield and the gleaming sword.

For painting I’ll straight up admit, I wanted to do Celestial Vindicators and Games Workshop did a nice Advent Calendar Painting Video last year for them and I loved the final result and decided to give it ago myself, and I’m very happy with the result. If I was going to collect Stormcast Eternals in AoS I would certainly be doing them as Celestial Vindicators.